NMMI Sports Press

The Bronco Volleyball team celebrated their sophomores before and after the final regular-season home match Saturday inside Cahoon Armory.

Maybe the longer than usual pre-game activities caused the Broncos to start slow, dropping the first set 25-22 to the visiting Western Texas Westerners. NMMI head coach Shelby Forchtner believes it was carry over from warmups, and she would know.

"We had a very rough pass and serve today, and I feel like that carried over into the first set," she said. "We weren't being very consistent and Western was playing well, too. We know that every team in our conference has the ability to beat us, so we have to come out focused and ready, and we waited until the second set to turn it on."

And turn it on they did, outscoring the Westerners 75-43 across the final three sets to win the match 3-1, moving to 9-3 in Western Junior College Athletic Conference play. NMMI currently sits second in the standings with a tie-breaker over Frank Phillips college, whom they defeated at Cahoon.

For the second-consecutive match, the Broncos hit over .300 (they hit .292 the match before that) and had multiple players hit over .400.

Freshman middle blocker Vitoria Oliveira converted 17-of-27 kill attempts with just two errors to hit .556 and sophomore hitter Allyah Tokelau killed 16 balls out of 29 with three errors for a .448 percentage.

"Vitoria and Allyah both had really good games today," Forchtner said. "This is what we need; to take the pressure off one person and spread it around. And nobody went out there and played awful. We had good contributions from everyone. We were able to distribute the ball, but we had those two key people that set the tone for our offense."

Sophomore outside Baby Moleni had 10 kills and a .320 outing and sophomore Laila Bernardino and freshman Leah Linares each had seven.

The Broncos used two setters almost equally, with freshman Kekililani Helekahi assisting on 30 scores and sophomore Marysa Ocampo setting 24 killable balls. Ocampo was also the best server of the afternoon, with 18 tries, two aces and just two errors.

"We didn't have a very good flow, and once we switched to the two setters and two attackers and took the DS out, it made a big difference in the blocking schemes and we played it better," Forchtner said.

Defensively, the Broncos dug out 100 balls with 32 coming from sophomore libero Mio Yamamoto, who has been Region 5 defensive player of the week five times and national player of the week twice.

"Mio is just really smooth," said Forchtner. "Every libero in our conference is pretty good. Some are really good in serve receive, or really good defensively or a great server. Mio has it all. She covers the entire court most of the time and can seemingly get to any ball. She just sees the court so well. She doesn't get shocked by hard shots or balls coming off the block, she just makes a quick movement and gets in position."

Sophmore setter and defensive specialist Vicki Johnson came in during the fourth and final set and helped seal the deal with six serves and two aces over the final six NMMI points.

The Broncos have two road contests to finish up the season. Winning both would secure the No. 2 seed in the Region V West tournament beginning Nov. 4 at Cahoon Armory.

Homecoming weekend brought more fans than usual and a loud, fun environment that the Broncos thrived on.

"When we have a lot of people here, our team tends to play better, so hopefully we get some folks out for the regional tourney," Forchtner said. "This is a fast, high-level brand of collegiate volleyball and I think once people come out and see us, they'll want to come back."